


Pseudonym

by warriorpoet



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 20:15:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorpoet/pseuds/warriorpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marie finds Jesse's endless party, loses herself, and steals some things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pseudonym

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cand86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cand86/gifts).



She wanders the open house, chatting brightly with the realtor, trying on a new skin to see how it fits. Tina Montgomery, a world-class pastry chef with a stunt driver husband, moving out from Los Angeles because Rebecca is almost two and already being hounded by commercial casting agents, and who the hell wants to raise a child in that kind of image-obsessed madhouse?

The realtor woman nods, smiles and shows Marie the new slate floors in the kitchen. Marie thinks she has a terrible bleach job, and needs to learn how to apply makeup with something other than a trowel. Her voice is high and piercing, like that annoying sound water pipes make sometimes as they're warming up. 

Marie thinks that this woman is probably a shallow bitch, and she decides to hate her. It gives her something to do.

The woman, who says her name is Maureen, and, _God_ , Marie hates that name, shows Marie the master bedroom, recently painted, central air. Another prospective buyer calls out a question from the living room, and Maureen the bitch excuses herself for a moment.

Marie looks around. There's a votive candle holder on one side of the dresser. Silver, etched with a pattern of daisies. One. There's only one. It's the kind of thing that looks like it should be in a set.

The lack of symmetry bothers her, so she tucks it into her purse.

*

As she walks back to her car, shedding Tina Montgomery like something she's outgrown, she thinks she feels the ground rumbling. Like bass-heavy music coming from a subwoofer, the kind of unholy noise that makes Hank utter the words "tiny-dicked shitbags" every time a passing car emits it.

There are people streaming in and out of one house, the music swelling with every movement of the front door. A skinny girl with matted blonde dreadlocks, a biker in leather and denim, a shirtless man with greasy hair and a sleeve of screaming demons inked on his arm. 

"Yeah! Pinkman knows where it's _at_ , man!" 

The shirtless man screams, high-fives a tall boy in a wool cap as he passes him by the curb.

_Pinkman_. 

Marie remembers that the house where Hank... did what he did to that Pinkman kid was somewhere in this neighbourhood. At the time, she had wondered what the hell a degenerate punk like that was doing living in such a nice place. Dealing drugs paid, obviously. It had to be the same one. How many Pinkmans lived near the country club and would have scores of what appeared to be questionable lowlifes coming into their house to listen to obscenely loud music?

She tosses her purse in the car and quickly strides down the block, knowing she doesn't belong but trying to act like she should. If she can find something out, something to bring back to Hank, maybe he'll be kinder. Maybe he'll stop hating her, lashing out at her, for just five lousy fucking minutes. 

And if not, well, then she might be able to avoid going home for a few more hours, and that will be fine, too.

*

The tall boy with the wool cap turns as she slips past him through the front door.

He frowns down at her.

"Yo, are you, like... somebody's mom?"

Marie scoffs and tosses her hair back. "Yeah, right," she shouts over the music. "Hardly. I heard this is where it's at."

The boy blinks at her. "Yeah. Right on... ma'am."

Marie winks at him, and steps further into the swirling throng of bodies that pack the house. She untucks her shirt, pops some buttons, leaves it open over her tank top. She jumps and shakes her head and musses her hair, trying to go for a secretaries-gone-wild look as she hikes her skirt up a little, rubs her eyes and smudges her makeup. She lets everyone who touches her mess her up a little more.

She gets caught up in it all, the noise, the writhing, sweaty movement, the shifting colors of light across her skin as she holds her arms up to the ceiling. She forgets why she's here, even forgets where she is. Why she is.

There are hands on her hips, moving with her. She looks down, sees a tattoo creeping up one of the hands, then the hand creeping up her waist, like it's carrying some kind of swirling black scorpion up her body, about to bite her.

Marie turns in the arms, locks in on a pair of blasted blue eyes.

"'Sup," he says. He smells of beer and cigarettes and something harshly chemical. "What's your name?"

"Roxy."

"Hey, Roxy. I'm Jesse."

*

After a while, he takes her hand and leads her up the stairwell, where it's a little quieter.

He pulls a small baggie from his pocket, blue powder and tiny crystals that she's seen pictures of in the files Hank brings home. It's the blue meth he's talked about. That Heisenberg case.

"You want a bump?" he asks.

"Nah. I'm trying to kick," Marie says with a shrug.

Jesse watches her closely. "Yeah. I thought you looked kinda clean." He slips the baggie back in his pocket. "You think maybe somewhere like this isn't the best place for you to be? What're you doing here, anyways?"

She leans back against the wall, looks up, blinks, suddenly overcome with the truth. "I don't want to go home."

He leans in, looks at her from under his eyelashes. "What's at home?"

"My... boyfriend... he's... he's sick. It's made him into a real asshole. Sometimes I don’t think he loves me anymore."

Jesse nods. "Yeah. I know something about sick dudes being assholes."

Marie frowns. "What do you mean?"

"It's, uh... it's my dad. He's got all kinds of health issues, and he's a monster prick. Constantly."

"Well. I guess we have something in common."

Jesse smiles, slowly. His fingers catch the hem of her skirt, slide up her thigh.

"I guess we do."

*

He takes her hand and leads her up to the bedroom. He asks if she wants to forget about things, and yes, _God, yes_ , she does.

They roll around on the bed and make out for a while. Marie loses her shirt, her shoes. Jesse doesn't talk, and she doesn't want him to. She gets up to unzip her skirt, and then he's fucking her against the wall. He's stronger than he looks, holding her up by her ass, her legs around his waist.

Marie thinks about who Roxy is. Roxanne Fitzgerald. She's a flight attendant, maybe. She started using meth to try to cope with all the time zone changes, to stay awake on those long flights back and forth to Europe and Asia. But when her bosses found out about her addiction, they loved her so much they couldn't fire her, just stuck her on crappy short-haul domestic routes if she promised to get treatment. Her boyfriend is a fire fighter, but he'd had an accident, had a ceiling collapse on him and break his back. His name is Dwayne. He resents Roxy because she can speak three languages, because she can pick up and go whenever she wants. He's a drunk. Roxy wants kids, but doesn't want them with Dwayne, wants to quit flying and stay home and raise a baby on her own while she pursues her real dream of writing romance novels.

Marie breathes heavily into Jesse's neck, trying on this new life, this sad life that can easily be escaped through a quick fuck with a stranger at some drug fuelled party. 

He's a generous lover for a degenerate punk; he pulls out and goes down on her when he notices she's not quite there with him. Her knees buckle when she comes, and then he leads her back to the bed, gets on top of her. The sheets feel dirty, are riddled with cigarette burns.

He finishes while Marie is looking at a crack in the ceiling, thinking about what Roxy would name her children, what kind of love stories she'd tell.

Marie readjusts herself, puts her skirt back on, finds her panties and her shirt. She hears Jesse snorting, sees the blue-white powder cut into lines on a small hand mirror. 

"You sure you don't want any?" Jesse asks, rubbing his nose.

"No. Thanks."

"Alright. I think there's still pizza downstairs, so... I'm gonna go grab a slice." He pulls his pants up, runs a twitchy hand through his hair. "See you 'round."

"Yeah," Marie says. "See you."

He thunders downstairs to the beat of the music, and Marie reaches her hand out for the bedside table. Her fingers lock on something, and she tucks it into her bra without looking.

*

Marie weaves back through the crush of people to the front door. She doesn't see Jesse, doesn't really look for him.

Back in her car, she fixes her makeup and brushes her hair, spritzes herself with perfume to cover up the smell of God knows what. There's an uncomfortable jabbing at her breast, and suddenly remembers that she'd taken something from Jesse's bedroom.

It's a necklace, or a hanging ornament... thing. A leather cord, a medallion etched with the words "45 Days". 

Marie shoves it in her purse, down by the votive candle holder, and leaves behind the shell of Roxy Fitzgerald.


End file.
